The present invention relates primarily to a process for the production of spiral springs having eyelets made of wire, wherein a spring body is wound or twisted from a section of wire in a winding station, an eyelet is formed on each end of the spring body in two forming stations, the spring body without eyelets is then transferred out of the winding station into a first forming station and wherein the spring body provided with one eyelet is thereafter transferred from the first forming station into a second forming station. The invention also relates to apparatus for the production of spiral springs having eyelets of wire including a device for winding or twisting a spring body from a section of wire in a winding station, two devices for forming an eyelet on each end of the spring body in two forming stations and a device for transferring the spring body without eyelets from the winding station into the first forming station and for transferring the spring body provided with one eyelet from the first forming station to the second forming station.
A machine of this type, by means of which a process as above-mentioned may be performed, is disclosed in German Pat. No. 1,402,878 (Wafios) comprising a spring winding machine with an additional device to successively handle the two ends of spiral springs independently of the spring winding machine. In the known machine which consists of a spring winding machine and an additional device, the transfer device has two rotating bodies, each of which has four radially movable grippers spaced equally about the periphery and a transfer device arranged between the two rotating bodies, so that the spring body must be individually and successively transferred from station to station. This is, however, subject to the disadvantages with regard to the process, in that the transfer distances between neighboring production stations are unnecessarily long and are dependent on the length of the spring body, that the movable elements of the transfer device must be greatly accelerated and rapidly moved for high productivity, and that the forming and transfer must take place synchronously with the winding. With regard to the machine, the construction is disadvantageously relatively expensive and is heavily loaded, so that the production and maintenance costs are relatively high.